I've always had a passing interest in photography, but until now it's been just that - passing. However, I am now considering taking the plunge and buying a digital camera. I looked long and hard at the Minolta Dimage Z1 and I VERY nearly purchased it. However, I got cold feet after seeing some of the chromatic abberation and night-time noise.

After seeing the sample pictures of the 4300 I was pretty shocked - I couldn't pick up any noticeable chromatic aberration, the macro quality looks FANTASTIC, and the night-time pictures seem to be great as long as you set the modes manually (ISO 100 and long exposure?).

So basically, before I go and splash out £300 on a camera, some questions.

1. It doesn't support Type II CompactFlash cards? Are all CompactFlash cards listed under the different types? Are there any reliable ones I should go for?

2. I read about jamming with 256MB cards, though that could relate to what I have described above. Has anyone experienced this, or could you recommend me a reputable CompactFlash card manufacturer?

3. How long does the battery last? I've not seen any decent estimates, and the spare battery is about £40 - quite a lot! Would I really need this, bear in mind that I would not have it on all the time? Any guesstimates as to how many pictures you could snap on a full recharge?

4. Is this model likely to be replaced any time soon? It seems like a great product, but I don't want it to be supersceded within a few weeks of me buying it!

I appreciate your help immensely, especially as some of my questions might come across as incredibly foolish. I did my best to try and answer them myself, so now I've turned to you.

I'm not too sure how well I can answer your questions, but I'll take a stab at it. I have the 4300. I've heard a lot of people reccommend Lexar memory for the camera, which is what I have. I have 256MB Lexar card and it works fine. I've had my camera since March of this year and as of yet I've not had any problems. I couldn't put a definite time on the battery life. It really depends on how much the flash is used. If your pictures are outsite and no flash is required, it will last a good while ..... if most pictures require the flash, it will surprise you how fast it goes. I have a spare battery and I highly reccomend it. Overall I'm very pleased with my camera though. It can yield some very nice pictures.; I especially like the flexibility of the manual controls.

i have a 4300, it is great. IT DOES NOT support Type II CompactFlash cards. i do not use the flash quite often, so i can take 70-90 pictures every charge ( about 15 of them use flash). i use the sandisk 256mb CF card. it is good, no probblem yet. the speed of transfering the image to PC is relatively slow. but, never mind, CF card is always slow. 4300 has very good image quallity. Nikon's image quality is always better than other brands'. see it yourself! :lol:

I love my 4300 too!!! I recently got a Panasonic FZ-10 for its zoom capabilities since I like sports photography. But I think the image quality of the 4300 is just as good if not better.

I think it is hard to beat for point and shoot. It is so small and takes great pictures, except maybe in low light (llike most cameras). My complaints are only the limited zoom (specific to me, I couldn't change accessory lenses fast enough). Shot-to-shot time is not as good as the FZ-10, but acceptable.

I have found battery life to be a minimal issue. I carry a second LiON battery (about $20 at Circuit City), and a CR5 disposable battery (about $7 at many places) as backups.

I use a SanDisk Ultra 128MB card. I find this faster than an Edge 128MB card. I personally think the camera can "bog down" when there are multiple photos on the card. I stick with 128's on the 4300 compared to 256's with the FZ-10. I'd get a couple SanDisk or Lexar cards with as fast of a speed as you can afford

The bottom line for me is that this is a small, fun to use camera that takes great photos. It really got my interest in digital photography up to the point where I bought the second camera. For the prices I have seen lately ($330-$400), I think this would be hard to beat.